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The US-created regime in Afghanistan has passed legislation which allows some Afghanis to commit marital rape. Some women will only be able to get an education or even see a doctor if they get their husband’s permission. It only applies to the Shia population. Apparently, Sunni women will continue to have more rights.

The law was rushed through the Afghan parliament without the opportunity for much debate or amendment. The Afghanis won’t even let the United Nations see a copy of the actual bill. Opponents say that for Shi’ites it creates a situation worse than the Taliban.

This is the same US-created regime that outlaws Christianity. It appears that the US and its allies will allow the Afghans to do anything as long as they aren’t habouring terrorists training to bomb the US or its allies.

In some ways I’m happy that Obama is president. Being a grumpy old man, yet a Republican, it has been difficult to complain about American politics while being loyal to the president and the party. Now that the Democrats control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, it will be much easier.

Before I launch into what will no doubt be at least four years of moaning, I will give credit where credit is due. One of policies of the Bush administration with which I disagreed was the detention of enemy combatants and various others at Guantanamo Bay, using it as a loophole to avoid the usual Constitutional constraints. In one of his first acts, President Obama ordered the closure of Gitmo within a year.

I’m not denying that this will not be an easy thing to do while maintaining the security of the US and avoiding the disclosure of classified information. However, these things must be resolved within the law, something that was wearing thin in the ongoing situation since the overthrow of the Taliban and the installation of the current Christian-hating regime in Afghanistan.

So in this one small way, I think BHO has moved in the right direction. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

I was discussing the number of Christians in the world with one of my classes and one boy questioned the number of worldwide believers. He doubted that the number was accurate. I agreed with him.

I explained that while demographic experts used a variety of data, that data was not always accurate. I explained that the Chinese government says there are 100 million Christians in China, while researchers at Shanghai University estimate the number is closer to 300 million, because most Christians in China worship in underground churches and are not recognised in the government’s figures. That would put the number of Christians in the world closer to 2.3 billion instead of 2.1 billion.

Then I made the mistake of explaining that many Christians in China and elsewhere are persecuted for their faith. Some kids, including the boy that questioned the numbers, thought that was pretty funny.

I don’t know why I then mentioned that they might have seen in the news that a British Christian who was working with handicapped children in Afghanistan was murdered just a couple of days ago. One girl laughed quite openly. I wanted to cry.

Gayle Williams was working with handicapped children in Afghanistan. She was working there because she is a Christian. She wasn’t there to preach the Gospel – just to live it.

That was enough for Taliban leaders to order her murder. In the cowardly way of Islamist terrorists, two of them drove by on a motorcycle and shot her.

It is very unlikely that her murderers will be prosecuted. After all, preaching the Gospel is illegal in Afghanistan. Converting to Christianity can result in the death penalty. And this is from the regime that the US, UK and assorted allies put into power.

I have long suggested that the Western powers that are propping up the Karzi regime should refuse to support it until Afghanistan legalises and protects Christianity.

The audacity of the British Government never ceases to amaze. Just when you think they couldn’t do anything more outrageous against truth and justice, they prove you wrong. It’s like, “You think that was bad? Watch this!”

When British soldiers are killed overseas, their bodies are flown into RAF Brize Norton. The problem is that Brize Norton is in Oxfordshire. That means that as soon as the corpse touches British soil, it is under the jurisdiction of the Oxfordshire coroner’s office. Deaths outside of Britain are subject to a coroner’s inquest to determine the cause and responsibility for the death.

If the responsibility for the deaths were entirely with the enemy, there would be no problem. Unfortunately for the Ministry of Defence, Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker just digs a little too deep. He notices that but for a few simple things like lack basic equipment and flawed procedures, men would be alive. It’s not easy digging, because the MoD is intentionally obstructive in the collection of evidence.
Now Defence Secretary Des Browne is trying to gag coroners from criticising the Government or the military. He wants the High Court to order coroners to censor their findings. He wants them to be prevented from using language that makes him look bad.

Since a Coroner is no Civil Serf, the Government can’t use it’s usual strong arm tactics to shut them up. As for people who ask too many questions who work for the MoD, they have Dr David Kelly to look to as an example.

I’ve been thinking about writing about something since I commented on Matt’s blog. Now having come across something else on Steve’s blog, especially as I am not a regular reader of The Independent, I am compelled to spout off.

I have much more of a problem with the war in Afghanistan than I do with the war in Iraq. Or perhaps I should phrase it more accurately: I have a bigger problem with propping up an Islamofascist regime where Christianity is illegal and evangelism or conversion (along with many other things) is punishable by death, than I do with propping up a regime that still has the potential for being an almost secular Muslim state where Christianity can still be practiced. As hope fades for the latter, my supports fades as well.

In the wake of 9/11 we (America and all our sympathetically outraged friends) needed some place to attack. You just can’t let something like that go unpunished. Even if you can’t find the actual culprits – or they deprived you of the right to string them up by killing themselves – somebody has to pay. The Taliban government of Afghanistan never attacked the US. It did allow the mostly Saudi-funded mostly Saudi terrorists a place to train, or at best didn’t actively get rid of them. However, it wasn’t a strategic ally of the US like other places they trained, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. And never mind that the US Government funded the Taliban to push out the Soviets in the first place. No, Afghanistan drew the short straw.

And how dare the Taliban not give up power and walk away when they were told to do so by the US Government. Don’t they know that all countries are ultimately subject to the sovereignty of the United States, as there is no corner of the global that is outside “American interests”. Not that the US really wanted them to walk away. They needed to do some killing. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, and all that.

Even though the US wouldn’t have taken on the 6th most populous country in the world – and a nookular power to boot – the military dictator of Pakistan quickly made sure he was on the right side of the Administration. The Wahabist absolutist monarchy of Saudi Arabia, with criminal law and social policies virtually the same as Afghanistan under the Taliban, knew that oil is a much more important export than heroin so they were safe. No matter that they actually provided the funding for extreme Islam around the world. Yep, Afghanistan definitely drew the short straw.

It seems to me that the case of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh is being a bit misrepresented in the headlines. He hasn’t been sentenced to death for just downloading and reading an article on women’s rights. No, he actually gave copies of it to other people. Islam respects the freedom of conscience. Kambaksh is allow to think whatever he likes. His truly fatal error was in telling someone else what he thought. That cannot be tolerated in liberated Afghanistan.

And that’s what US, British, and a handful of other forces are fighting to preserve. Not the democratic freedoms of the US or Britain or anywhere else. Not your freedom of speech. Not your freedom of the press. Not your freedom of religion. And certainly not anyone else’s. Aren’t you proud?